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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22886851">Look Him In The Eye</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexolotl/pseuds/Alexolotl'>Alexolotl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Courier Lily Bell [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood and Violence, Confrontation, During Canon, Friendship, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:53:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,380</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22886851</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexolotl/pseuds/Alexolotl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Courier Lily Bell makes it to the Tops and confronts the man who shot her, dealing with her fear and anger before coming to a resolution.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Craig Boone &amp; Female Courier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Courier Lily Bell [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645153</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Look Him In The Eye</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>One of a few snippets about Courier Six Lily Bell, originally posted on Tumblr.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She steeled herself outside the gates to the Strip - it was dark, there was a light rain pattering down, and still in Freeside she turned to Boone. Trying to get her head into the space where she might have to walk up to the man who stood above her as she knelt, hands tied, at the edge of her own grave. She wanted to tell Boone she had a plan, but she didn’t. Truth be told, she didn’t have a damn clue what she was going to do when she got to the Tops. Kill him? Look him in the eye and tell him the game was rigged from the start, shoot him just like he did to her? Or demand answers, demand the chip he stole, demand some kind of repayment? Lily Bell had no idea. None at all. She sat in the rain, hat pulled low over her face. E-DE beeped quietly.</p><p>Boone said, he’d been thinking. Maybe he should go back to Bitter Springs. It seemed as good a time as any to tell her, and she agreed. There was an unspoken<em> if I don’t make it out</em> between them; who knew what would happen on the other side of those gates? She smiled unconvincingly back at him.</p><p>“Maybe you’ve still got your demons. But if it’s redemption you’re after… thanks for helping me see to mine.”</p><p> </p><p>The Strip was too bright, too loud - she practically pushed Victor aside. His mysterious presence not just everywhere she seemed to go but also apparently at the Mojave Express outpost as she was hired was a mystery she wanted to get to the bottom of, but not tonight. If she let anything else distract her, she’d lose her nerve completely.</p><p>First obstacle was being told to relinquish her guns. They cast a wary eye over the eyebot, but didn’t seem to consider it a threat. Even so, the thought of facing the stony faced killer unarmed turned her stomach. But best not to be suspicous. She handed their weapons over and wandered through the theatre, through the restaurant - slipping quickly and quietly into the kitchen and grabbing a kitchen knife. Not totally defenceless. Good. She shoved it inside her jacket and left.</p><p>Main floor. Checkered jacket. Panic rising. What in the goddamn? Smooth moves. He caught her off guard. She couldn’t just lunge at him, not with so many bodyguards around. But his offer of drinks in the suite? A chance to get him alone. A chance to get answers. Her little mysterious smile and tilt of the hat did the trick, as usual. They walked up together, in silence, no bodyguards. <em>He really lives here, like this, she thought as they rode in the elevator. Rolling in caps, more booze than he could drink in a lifetime, people to attend to anything he could ever want. But he had to go to Goodsprings and shoot a tied up package courier in the head, and for what? More caps, more booze, more cronies?</em></p><p>He said he could sleep easier now he knew she wasn’t dead.</p><p>“Aw, did you feel bad about it? Lost sleep over it? Cry me a fucking river,” she snapped. Did he expect his admission of a guilty conscience to soften her up? It was a bit late to be having second thoughts about what he did. She wanted answers.</p><p> </p><p>And she got them. It really was for more caps, more booze, more cronies. To be king of the hill, head honcho. Because what he had wasn’t enough? She hadn’t touched a drop of the drink he poured her, but her stomach burned. How dare he. How <em>dare</em> he. She had stared down the barrel of a gun, far too young to die even by wasteland standards, more scared than she’d ever been, hands tied in front of her, trying to form words, tasted blood and dirt as she fell into an open grave - for <em>this?</em></p><p>She felt the weight of the knife in her jacket. No bodyguards, and Boone was sat across the room, E-DE floating beside him. He wasn’t wearing a weapon openly, and that headache of a suit jacket didn’t suggest the shape of a gun to her either. And yet -</p><p>she couldn’t do it. Even - or especially - once he’d given her answers, she hated the clean, shiny man in front of her, hated him so much it felt like she was burning from the inside out, but she couldn’t lean forwards and stab him. Her hands were shaking, and even with adrenaline coursing through her veins she didn’t think it would be enough to drive a kitchen knife through sinew and bone. What if he did have a gun and killed her? What if she didn’t finish it and he brought every Chairman in the place down on them? Part of her, the cynical, watchful part of her brain that had often kept her alive, said <em>this is all a ploy - the sitting at the bar, sipping a drink, looking tired and done and harmless? It’s all because he’s worried you’d bash his brains out right here otherwise.</em> And maybe that part of her was right, but it wasn’t enough to carry her the couple of steps that would take her to Benny and put a knife in him.</p><p>“You’re a selfish scumbag, Benny. And you’re stinking up my suite. Get out,” she said, and her voice didn’t tremble. She watched him like a hawk until the door shut behind him, heard his footsteps fade down the corridor, then collapsed against the bar and burst into tears. Boone got up and, after a moment’s hesitation, placed a hand on her shoulder. She sobbed for a bit longer, then raised up her head with a sniff. Went behind the bar, found one of the unopened bottles of whiskey, cracked it open and took a swig. She offered it to Boone, who followed suit.</p><p>“I don’t know if that was the right thing to do. I let him go but I couldn’t do it - I couldn’t kill him, why couldn’t I just do it?” Boone stared at her for a moment, expression unreadable as ever.</p><p>“So you couldn’t kill someone in cold blood. That’s not something to be ashamed of. Hold onto it.” And she knew what he meant by that. She didn’t think showing up here and planting lead in Benny’s skull would be as bad as what he did to her - and who knew how many others? - but the fact she couldn’t look him in the eye and just end his life was still one less thing in common with him, and she was fine with that.</p><p>Lily Bell saw Boone tense.</p><p>“Footsteps in the hall. At least four. Get against the wall.” He stepped so he was by the door, and Lily Bell stood so she’d be behind it when it opened. She readied her knife. True enough, the lock clicked and the door opened. The click of a silenced pistol was the first thing she registered, then Boone’s grunt, then she was wrestling a Chairman coming at her with a straight razor, ducking two swings, viciously biting the arm that grabbed her and stabbing behind her with the kitchen knife. Hand slippery with blood, she launched at one going for E-DE, stabbing him in the back. The knife handle broke. She swiped his pistol and levelled it at one attacking Boone, whose white shirt was soaked with blood. Click, it went, eerily silent. Click click. And the last attacker was still.</p><p>Boone slumped back against the wall.</p><p>“Boone? <em>Boone!</em>” she yelled, skidding up to him and kneeling down. He’d been hit in the shoulder and the chest. Scrambling, Lily Bell unfurled the roll of medical supplies she kept, pouring alcohol onto cotton and cleaning the wounds. Being such small bullets from a low power gun, they at least hadn’t gone in deep or done too much damage, but he’d still lose blood. Suppressing a shake in her hands, she used tweezers to remove the bullets, then got a Stimpack in his system. As she administered it, the rage in her chest overtook the fear.</p><p>
  <em>I’m going to catch up to you, Benny. And next time, you’re not gonna get so lucky.</em>
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